Really good pot

I found the best pot ever.

And by pot, I mean pot.  Two handles, made of metal, used in food preparation.

I passed it along to the fam in case anyone needed a gift idea for me.  I'm just sooo practical like that. Ha.

It's a 3-in-1 type set up- one large stockpot with two inserts- a deep one for boiling and a shallow one for steaming.

Last night I made steamed green beans.  Allow me to show you:

 This is the deeper basket for when you need to boil pasta, potatoes, etc.  Instead of having to use a colander, you just pull the basket up. 

 This is the shallow basket.  I dumped in my green beans and rinsed them off before putting the basket on top of the boiling water. 

 These took less than 5 minutes to cook.  Ea-sy. 

If you don't have one of these pots, you should go get one.  So versatile!

Best day/worst day

You guys- I made soup.

Not like in an open-a-can-of-Progresso-and-add-extra-vegetables way.

I made soup.  Sweet potato soup.

Deep freeze days call for soup and sandwich combos, right?

Here's a fun fact: it wasn't until college that I learned grilled cheese and tomato soup are partners in life.  Never.  Knew.  As a kid, I ate plenty of grilled cheeses (plural?), but never was there tomato soup alongside.

Now in fairness, I was a somewhat picky eater and I probably would've turned my nose up at tomato soup anyway, but now that I'm older and infinitely more mature, I can handle my soups and sandwiches just fine, thank you.

So yeah, here is sweet potato soup with grilled cheddar and spinach sandwiches:

Sweet Potato Soup makes 4 servings
-5 medium-to-large sweet potatoes (ideally uniform in size), washed and halved lengthwise
-1/2 cup water
-2 teaspoons olive oil
-1 medium yellow onion, cut into chunks
-1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
-1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
-4 cups unsalted chicken stock

In a microwave safe baking dish, place potatoes flat-side down and pour water on top.  Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on HIGH for 12-15 minutes, or until potatoes are super tender.  Dump the flesh into a medium bowl and discard the peels.  The skins on mine came apart from the flesh pretty easily.

Heat a shallow pan over medium-high heat.  Add oil and chopped onions.  Saute a few minutes until tender.  Stir in cumin and red pepper.  Add broth.  Bring to a boil for a minute.  Remove from heat.

Working in batches, add a few scoops of potato to your food processor along with a half cup or so of broth/onion mixture.  Puree.  Dump pureed soup into a saucepan.  Repeat until you've pureed all the potato and all the broth mixture.

Yep, you will be making a mess.  Worth it.

Reheat soup over low heat.

Grilled Cheddar & Spinach Sandwiches makes four sandwiches
8 slices sourdough bread
1 cup fresh spinach, washed and dried, thick stems removed
1 Tbsp light mayo
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon dill
4 slices aged white cheddar cheese

In a small dish, stir together mayo with garlic and dill.  Spread over 4 slices of bread.  Add spinach and cheese to top.  If you have a panini maker (like weeeeeee do), use that.  Otherwise a grill pan would work nicely.

I.  Loved.  This.  Meal.  The soup is slightly spicy, slightly oniony, and super creamy.  The sandwich is a old staple jazzed up a bit with the garlic and dill. 

Imagine my horror when the following day at work I opened up my lunch tote and realized I FORGOT TO PACK MY SANDWICH!

 MY SANDWICH!

If you haven't seen that episode of "Friends," please take 22 minutes and familiarize yourself:

 Gaaaah.  The only consolation was knowing that, unlike Ross, mine was still waiting for me at home.  Delayed gratification is so not my thing.  

Why do I like this recipe as a dietitian?  Tons o' vitamin A- mostly from the sweet potatoes, but the bit of spinach adds some as well.  Creamy comforting soup without all the calories of a cream-based soup.  

Now go make this. 

Just don't forget it in your fridge.  
  

Clean Sweep

I have to say- I'm kinda into the whole making New Year's resolutions.

Nothing wrong with pursuing continuous self-improvement, right?

Then again, I have no idea what my resolutions were on 1/1/13.  Probably something I didn't ever follow through with.  But that won't stop me from making more.

First up?  I would like to renovate our kitchen this year.

Anyone have a spare $10K laying around?

Ok at the very least I figure I can tackle the giant mess that has become our cabinet, "desk," and freezer.

Seriously- it's like this belongs on an episode of Hoarders. Though I am pretty sure there are no dead cats being preserved in there. 

Pretty sure.  

After a throwing away a shameful amount of old freezer-burned food (and possibly eating some freezer-burned ice cream), after purging some never-used small appliances:

 Voila!  Bread on the top, followed by miscellaneous, fruit, veggies, then meats. 

Yeah we'll see how long this lasts.  Truth time?  I didn't even make it cleaning off the desk.  I got distracted by trying my diapering skills on the dog.

Turns out she did not enjoy getting Pamper'd.

Hope everyone else's resolutions are off to a good start!